Here and Now
by Nichol1
Summary: Post X2, Alex comes to see his brother Scott, who is drowning in his grief....


Here and Now  
  
Disclaimer: Me makey no money, you no suey.  
  
Note: Takes place post-X2.  
  
*** ***  
  
He stood at the entrance to the mansion, suitcase in hand, and wondered what the hell he was doing there.  
Alexander Summers peered up at the huge mansion, blinking in the sunlight. It had been a long time since he had stepped foot in this place. It had never been home to him, not like it had been for Scott. His brother had found the mansion to be his safe haven and Xavier the father he couldn't remember - Alex grew up with a fairly normal adoptive family, and for him this place was never more than an endless cavern of winding corridors and lower levels that descended deeper and deeper into the earth. When he learned to control his powers, he had fled and never looked back. But he had returned now, every reluctant step bringing him closer to whatever fate awaited him inside.  
He found the hallways oddly empty and quiet. A few students slunk through the halls, barely bothering to glance at him. A feeling of perpetual sadness and grief had descended upon the mansion; Alex thought it would choke him. Gloom hung from the rafters and one automatically tip- toed, as though fearful to disturb the dead.  
Scott's room was at the end of the hall. He cracked open the door and pulled his suitcase inside. The light was so low that he had to stare into the darkness for several minutes until the shadows turned into shapes and from shapes into his brother. Scott was sitting still as a stone in a corner. He hadn't said a word when Alex came in and he wondered if Scott even knew he was here.  
"Hey," he said softly, a gentle call into the darkness.  
His brother's darker-haired head lifted a few inches, then turned to regard him with those covered red eyes. Many people found Scott disconcerting at first, being too used to reading only the eyes, but Alex had learned to read his brother's entire face and his body language besides, for clues as to how he felt. There was no rage, no grief, not even any self-pity in his brother, and Alex found that emptiness more terrifying than any of the other emotions put together. Rage, grief, self-pity..they all meant that Scott still felt something, that he was still there in some form, a human capable of bleeding and weeping and dying. But the figure before him was only the shell of a man; the soul had flown away.  
"I came as soon as I heard," Alex whispered, sitting on the floor before him. He wrapped his arms around his knees and rocked back and forth. Scott stared at him blankly, barely blinking.  
"You left," he said suddenly. The sentence was so unexpected that Alex actually jumped in surprise. The words accused him of wrongdoing but the voice was as dead as ever.  
"Yes, I did leave." Alex didn't bother to deny it, they both knew it was true. He had left without a backward glance. There had been nothing to make him stay. "But I've come back."  
"To stay?" Scott asked, his voice a rusty croak from disuse. He sounded as though he had not spoken in a long time.  
"For a while," said Alex, resting his chin on his knee. His brother looked at him for a long moment, and incredible pain contorted his face.  
"I thought I'd be alone," said Scott. "She died and you left and I was alone."  
"I'm staying for a while. I've already talked it over with the Professor, he's cool with it. I can't stay forever, though, I have responsibilities elsewhere. I have a wife and a son, remember? You should see your nephew, he's getting so big, and he'll start kindergarten soon. He looks just like his mother too, it's incredible." He was babbling, tossing out words to fill the silence. The words seemed to wash over Scott with no visible effect, and it wasn't long before Alex was squirming uncomfortably.  
Scott leaned forward, then slowly tapped his middle two fingers of his left hand to his temple. "I haven't been alone in so long," he began, "that when she died and the silence came I thought I'd go crazy. We always had this link, you see. It connected us and binded us, and only death could sever it. It's true what they say, about silence being deafening. Sometimes..I can almost hear her, far away.." He stopped talking, then slid off the chair onto his knees before Alex.  
"I miss her so much," he said. "It's eating me up inside, like more than a half of me is missing. The silence..the loneliness..no one wants to speak of it, for fear of speaking the truth. It's unbearable."  
Alex wrapped his arms around his brother then, and for a moment Scott sat locked in an embrace as powerful as it was desperate. They hadn't touched like this since - well, probably ever. There had always been too much between them, too many years missed, too many hurtful words, too much resentment and disappointment. Neither had taken the time to know the stranger who shared his face. But now Scott needed him, here and now, and Alex had to help if he could. Then, slowly, achingly, almost as though it caused him physical pain, Scott returned the embrace. He pressed his face to his brother's shoulder and sobbed as though his soul were bleeding.  
Alex held him gently, and knew at last why he was here. 


End file.
